Posted on 04/23/2013 11:25:09 AM PDT by NYer
Red Hook, New York – A recent anti-bullying presentation at a middle school in New York that focused on homosexuality and gender identity has angered parents after their daughters have come home to tell them they were forced to ask another girl for a kiss.
According to reports, the session occurred last week at Linden Avenue Middle School in Red Hook, New York, near Poughkeepsie. A group of students from Bard College led two workshops for the youth, separated by gender.
During the workshop for girls, the 13 and 14-year-olds were told to ask one another for a kiss. They were also taught words such as “pansexual” and “genderqueer.”
Parent Mandy Coon told reporters that her daughter was very uncomfortable with the exercise.
“She told me, ‘Mom, we all get teased and picked on enough; now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,’” she lamented. “They also picked two girls to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date.”
Coon stated that she was especially irate over the matter because parents were given no warning about the presentations, nor an opportunity to opt out. She is also dismayed that college students were granted the right to come into the classroom and encourage her daughter to be sexually active.
“I am furious,” she declared. “I am her parent. Where does anyone get the right to tell her that it’s okay for her to have sex?”
“The school is overstepping its bounds in not notifying parents first and giving us the choice,” another parent remarked. “I thought it was very inappropriate. That kind of instruction is best left up to the parents.”
According to reports, during the workshop for the adolescent boys, the students were counseled to keep a condom in their pocket at all times, and were taught how to identify a woman who is a “slut.”
“I was absolutely furious – really furious,” an anonymous parent told reporter Todd Starnes. “These are just kids. I’m dumbfounded that they found this class was appropriate.”
However, both the school principal and the district superintendent are defending the workshops, and are advising that they will schedule more. Superintendent Paul Finch told The Poughkeepsie Journal that the presentation was “focused on improving culture, relationships, communication and self-perceptions.”
“[We] may require more notification to parents” in the future, he said, contending that the sessions are required under the state Dignity for All Students Act, which prohibits harassment and bullying in the classroom.
He advised that Principal Katie Zahedi and guidance counselors at the school worked with Bard students to plan the workshops. Likewise, Mark Primoff, a spokesman for Bard College, said that students had volunteered to give the presentation after the school invited the institution of higher learning to participate in the workshops.
Zahedi asserts that the sessions were rather about saying no to unwanted advances as opposed to encouraging homosexual acts.
“In planning the discussion, we made it clear that absolutely no discussion of any sexual acts is appropriate to middle school, and they used the examples of a kiss,” she wrote in an online forum for parents. “It was a separate activity for boys and girls and ultimately about respect and safety.”
However, parents remain livid over the matter. A public meeting was held this week for residents to express their concerns.
It is not known whether girls actually had to kiss one another, or if the exercise stopped at the request.
This country's days are numbered...
How more obvious can it be- they are RECRUITING right under the parents’ noses!
bookmark.
The administrators and teachers at every school my daughter attended knew me. They also knew if they saw me marching down the hall that someone was gonna get it.
They, like their parents, have been directed to submit to the notion the authorities know what's best, and are not to be questioned... ever.
“Send out your visitors so that we can have sex with them!”
ka CHOW!
This is a government school. Why are people so shocked?
Fricken nation of sheep.
Where is Dean Swift when we need him!
William Flax
So would I. Followed shortly by beating the crap out of them. No change now that I am old.
Why isn't it known or is it just not being reported? These sessions are child abuse and parents should be filing police reports to bring charges against the school officials and presenters involved.
What are we supposed to do when the same-sex asks for a kissin in the brave new Obama ‘anything goes but dont offend gays’ world?
Allowing “college kids” - no more than high School kids that just graduated and “THINK” they know everything and have the public freedom to introduce this crap on junior high students...should have NEVER been left alone - let alone allowed to present this until it was reviewed by ADULTS....but then again, some so-called adult thought this crap was appropriate....everything is getting way out of control...
Standing up in front of a bunch of junior teens and giving a speech is one thing - participation in what appears to be some type of immature sex game is another. The parents need to file complaints and seek civil suits against the school board, superintendent, principal, and the teacher(s) that set this stupid program up & seek out the college reps that taught this to their students...they all need to resign or be fired! Then a message would be sent loud and clear!
Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) Signer of the Declaration of Independence & “Father of Public Schools”
Bears repeating... loudly!
Yeah, because when you hand your children over to strange teachers to be raised, the first thing that should happen is that your kids are asked to pretend-sin...to learn a lesson.
I completely agree.
In a just society this program should involve jail time for those responsible.
You just tell your kid not to do anything that makes them the least bit uncomfortable and back them up and let the school know that your kid has the right to refuse to do anything they don’t want to do regarding sex education.
I just love these satire articles.
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